In creating a custom XAML UserControl, a need arose to make use of generics with the UserControl class. The control is based upon the XAML AutoSuggestionBox control and implements a quick lookup of a user from an app supplied list of users. The control uses Linq queries to efficiently search through a list of type User using Name and Id properties. The search can be on partial name completion or on user’s initials. So as to allow the use of a broad range of list types for the supplied user list, as provided in the UserControl’s hosting app, the app’s user type needs to implement a specific set of properties that are used in queries and so it must implement a specific interface (called IUser). It would have been nice to have parameterised the UserControl class using generics to specify the list of users’ data type as the apps user type and constrain it to implement the interface using generics. But the custom UserControl class does not permit generics. Consider the following: ...

Entity Framework, in Code First Manner, can auto-generate the scaffolding for accessing a database from an app from an app’s model class. In a previous blog I covered some issues wrt using Entity Framework Core with a Universal Windows (Platform) app with a Sqlite backend database. The entities are specified as classes in in a .Net Core class project separate to the app project (within the same solution). The issue addressed in that blog was a problem referencing the class library from the UWP project. This blog revisits the same topic with an emphasis upon the steps required to implement an EF Core backed UWP app.

The SurfPad project as on GitHub and hackster.io is a UWP app that runs on a touchscreen Windows device. It runs as the configurable UI for an app running on an embedded device such as an Arduiino device or a Raspberry Pi (running IoT Core).. The frontend sends single characters as commands (representing button presses) whereas the backend returns responses as text strings, representing sensor data that the remote device has determined. So the communication data is textual. The communication between the two devices can be a network sockets client-server conduit, USB Serial or Bluetooth Serial. Whilst Bluetooth Serial works OK between a Windows 10 desktop (or IoT Core) as the frontend and an Arduino device as the remote backend, using an IoT Core device as the backend has been shown to be problematic. This article presents an alternative based upon Bluetooth RFComm Chat client –server architecture, which does work.

Issue: Can pair a Windows 10 device with an Arduino device and communicate over RFCOMM. But although can pair two Windows 10 devices over Bluetooth Serial, I can’t serially transmit between them: No serial port for OutGoing end.

Windows Embedded Compact 7

The Windows Embedded Compact 7 (Compact 7) getting started series is created to provide simple and easy to follow information to help academic, hobbyist and commercial developers to learn and engage in Compact 7 development.

***This is a series of 9 articles, with additional supplements, that cover the following subjects: